Paul Ryan to meet black U.S. lawmakers after 'offensive' remarks

WASHINGTON, March 14

WASHINGTON, March 14 Republican U.S.
Representative Paul Ryan on Friday agreed to meet with the
Congressional Black Caucus after members of the group branded
his remarks about inner-city poverty this week "highly
offensive".

The controversy began on Wednesday after Ryan said on
William Bennett's talk radio show, "Morning in America," that
there was a "tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in
particular, of men not working and just generations of men not
even thinking about working or learning the value of work."

Representative Barbara Lee of California, a member of the
Congressional Black Caucus, called Ryan's remarks a "thinly
veiled racial attack."

"Let's be clear, when Mr. Ryan says 'inner city,' when he
says, 'culture,' these are simply code words for what he really
means: 'black'," Lee said in a statement.

Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate, is
known for budgets with proposed deep cuts to programs that help
the poor. The potential 2016 presidential contender has made a
point of proposing Republican solutions to ease poverty that
focus on the private sector.

The Wisconsin lawmaker, who chairs the House Budget
Committee, said in a statement that he "was inarticulate" about
the point he was trying to make.

"I was not implicating the culture of one community, but of
society as a whole," Ryan said. "We have allowed our society to
isolate or quarantine the poor rather than integrate people into
our communities. The predictable result has been
multi-generational poverty and little opportunity."

Last week Ryan released a report on the federal government's
50-year-old "War on Poverty" that concluded that many of the 92
federal programs aimed at assisting the poor were "haphazard"
and contributed to a "poverty trap" that keeps people dependent
on welfare benefits.

Representative Marcia Fudge, chairwoman of the Congressional
Black Caucus, and Representative Gwen Moore, also from
Wisconsin, sent Ryan a letter in which they called his talk
radio remarks "highly offensive" and invited him to a meeting of
the caucus to discuss ways to eradicate poverty.

"A serious policy conversation on poverty should not begin
with assumptions or stereotypes," they wrote.

Ryan spokesman William Allison said on Friday the House
Budget Committee chairman "would welcome a productive
conversation on how to better fight poverty, and he looks
forward to meeting with the CBC in the near future."

Allison declined to comment on the timing for Ryan's 2015
budget plan.

House Speaker John Boehner has repeatedly said the House
would pass a budget this year that would reach balance within 10
years. This would require deep cuts in federal benefit programs,
especially if previously agreed discretionary spending levels
for 2015 are maintained.

Republican lawmakers and aides said on Friday that party
leaders were polling rank-and-file members to gauge support in
the caucus for a budget that balances in 10 years, indicating
some uncertainty over the path forward.

No Democrats are likely to vote for a Ryan budget, so to
pass, it would need 218 votes out of the party's 233 House
members.

A two-year budget deal negotiated by Ryan and Democratic
Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray had to rely on
Democrats for passage as 62 Republicans voted against it.